


The Shaking of Your Hand

by rockthecliche



Category: Johnny's Entertainment, KAT-TUN (Band), Kanjani8 (Band), NewS (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-03
Updated: 2012-02-03
Packaged: 2017-10-30 13:34:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/332281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rockthecliche/pseuds/rockthecliche
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything starts and ends with a memory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Shaking of Your Hand

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as part of a small Secret Santa exchange amongst friends, and Amy, this is for you! The idea for this fic came from a most productive think tank session with my lovely beta, Tara, without whom this thing would never have existed, ever. This fic is heavily influenced by a lot of things even if I didn’t know it at the time, but it draws mainly from Tron and, in a few minor ways conceptually, Inception.

As Junno blinks his eyes open, the sunlight hits them hard and he squeezes them shut almost immediately. The bed he’s lying on is rather lumpy, nothing at all like the bed he has at home, but it’s just for the experience of it, he tells himself. He’ll get used to it eventually.

He finally clambers out of bed half an hour later, when there’s just no possible way he’s going to be able to go back to bed, and he peers around the small hut that he’s taken respite in for the night. He can tell the earth is cracked and hardened through the spaces in the wooden floor, and the wood holding the structure up isn’t faring all that much better, either. Still, for just a night, it suited him just fine.

He quickly tugs on his worn leather boots, secures his pack over his shoulder, and leaves the house. Outside, he vaguely thanks the local farmers for letting him sleep there. He hops on his horse and trots away.

The world around him flickers a little bit. Junno frowns – that’s certainly not supposed to happen. Maybe he is more tired than he thought he was, but as it doesn’t happen again, he presses on, urging his horse to go at a full gallop.

He reaches the city a good, solid six hours later and it’s a little bit like heaven when he hops off the horse and stretches his back out. Several spots crack back into place and he groans at the feeling – as bad a habit as it is, it always felt too good to stop doing altogether.

He walks the rest of the way, just exploring the city. It’s made completely of a white stone of some kind, and the knights are wandering around, minding their own business. He stops to chat with a few of the locals, asking them where the nearest inn is, and he gets five different sets of directions until he stops to bribe a child to lead him the way.

The inn is the place he’s most interested in – he can explore and talk to the other city dwellers at some point, but the innkeeper has answers.

He doesn’t disappoint, either, responding quickly and with ease to Junno’s questions about the city, a little help for his quest, and whether there was a vacancy in the inn for him. The innkeeper is friendly and knowledgeable, a nice mix of hospitable and outgoing, and Junno really couldn’t have asked for more.

When Junno’s safe in his room for the night, he pulls up the side menu and saves his game.

 

_”So as you can see, when in the simulation pod for the first time, the game will ask you a series of questions regarding your lifestyle and values, and then taking this information along with a quick scan of your mind and a little imagination, the game will map out a world to call your own. While the main game’s quest and plot won’t differ much, the most important thing to note is that this is a world that is catered to your desires at its deepest core.”_

 

“How’d it go?”

Junno pulls off his visor and gloves, yawning a little as he emerges from the simulation pod’s door. “Well! The NPCs are all reacting as they should to tone, and the main ones are interacting with very little hiccups. My innkeeper is really nice.”

Shige sighs. “Lucky. Mine gave me lip the moment I got in there and called me a filthy thief.”

Junno laughs. “You _did_ choose to be a less than noble profession.”

“It’s just bad business practice!”

“Isn’t that lifelike, then?” Junno says, padding across the floor to the main computer, scrolling through some code. “There was a small visual glitch somewhere…”

“Here, I’ll note it and we can go through and fix them all when the NPC push is all done. I also noticed that time passed a little slow – a minute was more a minute and a half in game,” Shige flips open a rather thick binder and grabs a pen from the pencil holder. Junno relays the time the world flickered around him in the simulation as he continues to skim page after page of programming, and finally catches the stray bracket. He deletes it and doesn’t bother telling Shige about it – it’ll be funny when they’re scouring code in a few weeks and Shige goes nearly mad trying to find this particular glitch.

“So the people that become NPCs in game are people drawn from our subconscious memory?” Shige asks.

Junno nods. “Yeah. The brain remembers more than we give it credit for – it’s why we dream about people we think we don’t know, but they’re usually people we’ve seen somewhere, anywhere. The faces are burned into our brain’s memory, for whatever reason.” He turns to Shige, who’s merely nodding along, eyes looking a little distant. He grins. “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

“I’m just going to leave all of that stuff to you to understand, and for you to explain to the committee at our next game meeting,” Shige shrugs, regaining his focus. “Want to go for a drink?”

“You know it.”

 

A few weeks later, as Junno’s pushing another NPC update to stop their heads from disappearing halfway into conversation, Shige peers over his shoulder and frowns.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing,” Shige fidgets a little.

Junno stops and whirls around in his chair. “You only look over my shoulder whenever there’s something going on in-game that you’re not very fond of.”

“That’s not true!”

“No? What about your insistence on having crossbows? Or how the starter armor was inadequate? Or how the starting _quest_ was too hard?” Junno quirks an eyebrow.

“This isn’t like that, it’s just – “ Shige sighs. “You don’t get the feeling that some of the NPCs are too lifelike?”

“But that’s the point of virtual reality, isn’t it?” Junno wonders. He takes a good look at Shige as he considers his question. “Why, did something happen?”

“No, nothing like that, it just freaks me and a few of the others out a little.”

Junno grins, swiveling back around and going back to work. “Then you probably should have found a job in something other than virtual reality.”

 

The thing with any code update is that it takes a long time to get everything right and to make sure that it all works according to their specifications. Junno and Shige are very good at what they do – Junno has enough enthusiasm for video games to make up for Shige’s lack thereof, and he’s willing to research anything the both of them aren’t familiar with to get it right, but Shige’s genius in finding code loopholes and inventing ways to consolidate massive blocks of programming is something Junno would never be able to do. Together, they make a really good team, but between being perfectionists and calibrating information gathered from their test group, it ends up being weeks before Junno logs on to his game and sees the changes they’ve made take effect.

He wakes up in his dingy little room at the inn, just as he remembers it – a brown rug that looks like it used to be red, a crooked chest of drawers, curtains eaten through by moths and lord knows what else. The room is lit by candlelight, casting dark yellow hues across the room, and Junno thinks he should probably get out of there. It’s creepy.

Though if this is his dream world, there’re probably more issues than he’s even aware of.

Downstairs, he wanders by the check-in and says hi to the innkeeper and it pleases him to see that he is still the happy, amiable guy that first appeared. Shige had mentioned something about some of the NPCs not retaining their self-generated personalities, and it reassures him to know that the overhaul of the personality system had, seemingly, worked, though mostly on Shige’s end.

On the innkeeper’s recommendation, Junno wanders down the main road in the city after feeding his horse. He brushes off a few propositions from some of the bustier women and pushes through, heading into the tavern. It has the best ale in the country, apparently, and Junno is willing to put it to the test.

He grabs a seat at the counter, intent on keeping to himself and watching the patrons and how they act, along with keeping an eye out for glitches anywhere. Thankfully, it’s not too busy so he chooses a seat with a good view of the entire tavern. He orders a pint and settles in for the night.

Just as his ale is about empty, another one is set down in front of him. Junno looks up, intent on refusing it, but he stops short a little when he looks straight into rich, dark eyes, lidded with secrets and something inherently sensual.

“I didn’t ask for this,” Junno says.

The eyes crinkle upwards a little as the man in front of him smiles from behind the counter. “Consider it on me.”

“What would the occasion be?” Junno questions.

The man shrugs. “You’re sitting all alone, not talking to anybody, merely watching. I figure you either had your heart broken or you don’t like people.”

Junno smiles a little. “So you took your chances on me being emotionally compromised?”

He watches the bartender’s smile grow as he straightens out and leans back against the counter behind him, torso curving ever so slightly as he leans towards one side. Junno looks up at him, being much taller than he had expected, with legs that look like they go on for days. “One thing I’ve learned working here is that the good-looking are always the nice ones.”

As much as Junno doesn’t want to be blushing right now, it’s a little hard to stop it.

The man extends a hand. “I’m Ohkura. What’s your name, ranger?”

“Taguchi, but everyone calls me Junno,” he says, shaking Ohkura’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Oh, the pleasure is all mine,” Ohkura replies, voice silky smooth. “So how long are you in town for? Your kind is usually in and out.”

“They are, aren’t they? But I’ll be here for a while yet. I like to take my time, there’s much to explore.” Junno takes a sip of the beer. “Funny, this tastes better when someone’s just said you were good looking.”

Ohkura laughs. “I suppose I wouldn’t know.”

“Well, you can test it out for yourself,” Junno raises the cup, urging him to take it. Ohkura carefully takes a sip, swallowing it down quickly.

“Aren’t you supposed to say that I’m good looking?” Ohkura asks.

Junno grins. “I thought it went without saying.”

“The aftertaste is a little underwhelming, then.”

“That’s what they always say but it worked, didn’t it?” Junno shrugs and Ohkura chuckles a little bit, setting the glass back down in front of him, all the while shaking his head.

“You are strange, Junno.”

He beams, ignoring the flip-flopping his stomach’s doing. “Yeah, I know.”

 

Shige is looking over his shoulder again.

“What is it, Shige?” Junno asks, not even bothering to swivel around this time.

Shige fidgets. “It’s about the NPCs.”

“Are their heads disappearing again?”

“No, they’re just too lifelike. I know we want them to be able to interact freely without too many variable constraints but Junno, they’re _really_ creeping me out,” Shige says, sounding more concerned than usual, making Junno stop and study his friend. “I mean, it’s not just me, some of the others, too, are a little worried about how intricate they are.”

“They’re just game characters, Shige, they’re not going to kill you in the middle of the night,” Junno replies.

“It’s not dying I’m worried about,” Junno hears Shige mumble, but otherwise, he says nothing more. And really, it’s not that Junno isn’t concerned about what Shige is talking about, but as the company is already pushing them to hurry with the virtual sim and them being weeks behind schedule, there’s very little room for more wasted time here.

And maybe part of him likes the NPCs the way they are, too.

 

 

Weeks later in game, Junno has practically become a permanent fixture in the inn, spending most of his time in the game at the tavern, getting to know Ohkura. While his denying any special feelings for any of the NPCs is really for the best, something stirs in the bottom of Junno’s stomach because it feels weird to be completely enamored by someone that only exists in a game. But Ohkura is easy to talk to, he laughs at all of Junno’s jokes, and there’s something about the way Ohkura carries himself that is simply pleasant to be around. Junno finds himself looking forward to logging on only to spend his entire session living simply day by day, ending each day with a long night spent with Ohkura at work in the tavern.

This night is no different. As Ohkura tells him about his life thus far, Junno wonders at how intricate the NPCs have become, wondering if Shige is having the same results with the NPCs on his end. He hadn’t expected their AI to develop so rapidly – he would have to ask Shige about his experiences in-game once he was done.

“Have you ever thought about leaving the tavern, going out and exploring on your own?” Junno asks as the tavern closes, Ohkura walking around cleaning the tables as best as he can.

“I tried once,” Ohkura says while wiping a table down. “I thought I should try to become an assassin.”

Junno smiles at that, trying to imagine Ohkura, who was alert and awake only on his very best days, as an assassin. “What happened?”

“I woke up late,” Ohkura replies plainly and Junno laughs outright. “Hey! I’ll have you know that I actually did train for a month or so, and then on the day of my test, I overslept.”

“So you gave up?” Junno asks, twirling around a little bit on his stool, eyes following wherever Ohkura walked.

“They only have them once every few months and after that, I just forgot. Besides that, I only wanted to become an assassin because it sounded cool.” Ohkura yawns, tossing the washcloth over the bar and into a basin. “Something like this is much more my pace, anyway.”

“As long as you’re having fun,” Junno nods.

“I’m not sure if that’s the word I’d use, but it seems to fit.” Ohkura settles himself on the stool next to Junno’s, lightly kicking it to swing himself towards Junno. “I’m surprised you’re still here.”

“Why?”

“Well, you’re a ranger. They never stay. So you’re either not up to much, or not a very good ranger.”

Junno chuckles a little bit. “You are full of assumptions.”

“I don’t have much else to go on. You’re a total mystery.”

Junno twists and turns in his chair until he’s facing Ohkura, nudging him with his foot a little. “Okay, then. What do you want to know?”

“That just takes the fun out of it. I want to unravel you by myself.” The look on Ohkura’s face is one that Junno can’t read very well, but what his face hides, his tone reveals as it drops just slightly, words uttered with loaded intentions. Somewhere in the deep recesses of Junno’s mind, he’s wondering when they put romance aspirations into the programming, but this thought is pushed to the side as he realizes this sudden dynamic shift is more than welcome.

Ohkura’s lips are the kind he could kiss forever; full and plump, responsive, sweet and addictive, parting every so often to let out tiny puffs of air against his own thin lips. Ohkura’s fingers still on Junno’s cheek, tilting his head to the side ever so slightly and coaxing him to open up . He obliges, meeting Ohkura’s tongue with his own, slipping past those luscious lips and dipping into the cavern of his mouth, and the fingers on his cheek slide into his hair and make no sign of moving to anywhere else. A soft whimper escapes from Ohkura; Junno licks at the corners of his lips and the whimper is louder this time, and Ohkura pulls away a little, keeping their lips centimeters apart.

“Did you mean to do that?”

“I think so.”

A breathless chuckle escapes Ohkura’s lips and warms Junno down to his toes. “Good.”

 

One day, Junno comes back to the office after his lunch break to find an ambulance pulled up to the entrance and paramedics leading a rather disgruntled looking man from the building, cradling his right hand. There’s a bit of a crowd inside the lobby as they all watch the commotion, and Junno stops to ask Yoko, one of the testers, what happened.

“Jin got into a fight. Took a swing, broke his hand.”

Junno’s jaw drops. “With who?”

Yoko chortles. “You mean with _what_. He punched the simulation pod after a mocking battle with some kid.”

 

He not-so-gently shoves Ohkura against the wall, mouthing against his neck, drawing sounds from the man’s throat. The click of Ohkura’s door being unlatched and the tumble into the room is less than graceful, but Ohkura doesn’t seem to mind, too occupied with getting Junno’s clothing off as soon as his hands can manage, which isn’t very fast at all but Ohkura’s nothing if not determined, tugging on the fabric every which way until it gives.

Sex in this sort of environment is a little strange, Junno has to admit. While he can certainly feel all the things his body would, typically, be feeling if this were real life, he’s reminded every so often that there is no one actually with him, like when his fingers reach out to touch skin and makes contact with cold, hard steel instead. But the image of touching Ohkura’s chest and torso and thighs seem real, as well as the image of Ohkura writhing underneath him, back glistening with little drops of sweat as he pushes his hips back to meet Junno’s in a smooth, solid rhythm.

He may not _actually_ feel the warmth of Ohkura’s body surrounding him, but the imagination is a powerful, powerful thing.

 

Shige moves to ask him what happened and how it went, but he stops short. Junno’s still rubbing his eyes from the sudden light, but when he looks up, Shige is rooted to the spot, furious blush on his face and looking rather awkward. He follows Shige’s gaze and looks down.

Oh.

Shit.

“I’m going to go…take care…of…yeah,” Junno says, grabbing his sweater and holding it in front of his crotch as he runs to the bathroom.

“I _really_ don’t want to know what happened in there,” Shige calls after him.

 

It’s not that he doesn’t know there are concerns amongst the staff about the NPC system -- week after week, he gets internal reports from the testers saying that the system is too involved for such a minor part of the whole, but Junno remains adamant.

If people are getting caught up and confused, that’s their own fault.

 

Three weeks later, Shige doesn’t show for work. His desk is completely cleared out and, if Junno didn’t know better, it looks like it has been completely devoid of personal belongings for a very long time. He calls him, hoping for some answers, but Shige dodges most of them, citing the need to be out in the real world as his reason for leaving, but Junno has no idea what that even means. Shige sounds tired, exhausted even, and his voice sounds distressed, like he just doesn’t want to talk about it anymore – Junno drops it even though none of it makes any sense.

It’s _Shige_. His partner in crime.

As per the company’s request from all leaving personnel, Shige’s game save is already deleted from the game’s internal memory when Junno checks the system. 

 

Ohkura’s lying pliant underneath him and his breathy moans should be urging him on, but it’s only deterring him instead. He grips his hips and presses them down to the bed, trying to delay the inevitable, but thankfully, Ohkura picks up on Junno’s distractions and after ten minutes of an inattentive blowjob, he gently urges Junno away and up. He makes Junno lay down next to him, slipping a leg in between his thighs, cuddling up to him.

“Sorry, I just…” Junno trails off.

“What’s bothering you?” Ohkura asks.

Junno battles with this question in his mind. The truth is that Shige’s last few words at the office were bothering him a lot, but there was no way to tell Ohkura about any of it without telling him about how this was all a game, and Junno did not want to be the first person in the world to witness an AI become self-aware. They always seemed to implode or go crazy for power or something in movies. _Terminator_ was pretty scary.

“I just don’t know how to fix things,” Junno says carefully.

“What happened?”

“Nothing…I wish I could have been more help to a friend, that’s all,” Junno sighs and shifts a little, laying flat on his back. He stares at the ceiling, trying to remind himself that it doesn’t exist, either.

What exactly happened to Shige?

“Maybe you should talk to them about it,” Ohkura suggests, drawing Junno’s attention back to him. He drapes an arm across Junno’s chest, fingers tracing light patterns on the skin. “I don’t know what happened, but I don’t think they’re telling you everything.”

No, Junno thinks to himself. Shige is definitely hiding something from him.

Ohkura gently kisses his shoulder. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Yeah,” Junno says. He turns his head and kisses Ohkura, chaste despite what they were up to ten minutes ago. As they pull away, he pauses and just watches Ohkura for a few seconds, committing to memory the angles of his face, the slope of his nose, and the beauty marks peppered throughout his skin.

Ohkura ducks his head a little at being stared at so openly. “What?”

“Just thinking,” Junno mumbles, and even though it breaks his heart a little, he says, “I think you might be the best thing to happen to me in a very long time.”

 

Junno spins the disc in his hand a little bit, mostly out of nerves, but mostly because if Shige knew what he was about to do, he would have quit anyway. But Junno has to know.

_Has_ to know.

Knowing that the more he thinks about it, the more he’ll hesitate, Junno pops the CD into the console and climbs into the sim pod. He bypasses the save files already in the system and forces it to read the CD.

Shige’s town is a lot more modernized than the city in Junno’s game. There’s airships flying to and fro, a large university, a busy port with an equally busy town market – it reminds him of something straight out of the Victorian era, with added aviation. He has a bag in his hand that he assumes is his, and he tosses it over his shoulder as he begins to explore the city of Shige’s mind.

He spends hours upon hours aimlessly wandering, trying to avoid drawing attention to himself just in case someone recognizes Shige’s character and wants to strike up a conversation. Some parts keep glitching on him, no doubt a result of the data recovery process he used to salvage the files to begin with, helping his plight to remain undetected, but nevertheless, he remains careful.

He manages not to catch anyone’s eye until he walks into the main university building.

“Shige!” A young boy calls out to him the moment he walks into the library, and he’s walking towards him, happiness radiating off him in waves as intense as his bright smile. “I was wondering if you slept in this morning or something, you missed the gearwork lecture!”

And then, to Junno’s complete astonishment, the boy kisses him, short and sweet. It takes Junno completely by surprise, and he’s sure he still has an astonished look on his face as they break apart. The smile slowly fades from the boy’s face.

“Wait…you’re not Shige,” he states, frowning deeply. “Who are you?”

“Look, I can explain,” Junno rushes to clarify. “Shige, the real Shige, won’t be playing anymore.”

The other’s face falls. “Oh…so he really did quit, then.”

Junno stares at him, stunned. “How do you know about that?”

The boy sighs. “I told him to.”

 

Half an hour later, the boy named Massu is making Junno tea in the staff lounge of the university, the silence between them a little uncomfortable. Junno catches Massu staring at him a few times here and there and while it unnerves him a little, he gets it – he’s not Shige, even if he’s wearing Shige’s character, and it would be much for anyone to have to get used to.

A mug of steaming tea materializes in front of him and Massu sits down across from him. “I’m guessing you want to know everything.”

“It would be most helpful,” Junno says, wrapping his hands and fingers around the tea mug.

Massu looks thoughtful for a few moments. “Well…we met when he first came into town. He didn’t talk to people a lot, and the townspeople started to think he was really weird, but he didn’t seem dangerous to me or anything, so I said hi one day and we gradually became friends.”

“You grew attached?”

“A little, sure. Shige thinks differently than a lot of people, it seems, and it was interesting to get his point of view and opinion on things.”

“So when did you guys get together?”

Massu pales a little. “To be honest, we never talked about our feelings or anything. He constantly tried to deny it since I’m not real and I’m just in a game, but I didn’t want to fight.”

“About you being fake?”

Massu shakes his head. “No, I believe that part. I just didn’t want to push the issue of feelings, I guess,” he cautiously sips his tea. “We had a lot of fun, but he would always start thinking about how it was impossible that this was happening. He seemed to really like having someone listen to him talk about anything, even if it was how lifelike I was and how much it creeped him out. And eventually, we developed a pretty solid trust in each other.”

“So you were more a friend than anything.”

“We were a lot of things. It seems silly to try and confine us to one thing,” Massu muses. “He told me about all his worries, I told him about mine. We talked about both our worlds. He talked my ear off about the stuff he was learning at the university and I would try to get him to put all of that into practice. He told me about how befriending me turned him into one of those people who only relied on games for companionship.”

“So that’s why he quit?”

“I guess. He seemed really bothered by it, so I told him that if he really wanted to and if he was really that worried about living that sort of life, then he should just quit, stop playing.” Massu grows quiet for a few seconds. “I didn’t think he actually would quit. I meant it in a joking kind of way, like something you say to someone even though you know they wouldn’t.”

Junno sits back and takes all this new information in, and slowly begins to connect the dots – why Shige was so adamant about changing the NPCs to be less realistic, and why he was speaking in cryptic words and sentences the day he was packing his stuff at the office. Shige had already formed a connection with this Massu, but he was also smart and knew he shouldn’t have it carry on for as long as it did, but it was hard to think of taking that final step and ceasing that connection willingly unless there was a catalyst of some sort.

“How did you feel when you found out that this was all a game?” Junno asks.

Massu considers this question a little bit. “I didn’t believe it at first, but it began to make sense. Though I guess it didn’t change much of anything, in actuality. It just made us realize how limited this relationship was going to be. Him quitting seemed to be the next logical step in the long run.”

He looks so sad, completely different from the person that greeted Junno, and he can’t help but apologize. “I’m really sorry about everything. If I had listened to him, if I had just listened to somebody, this probably wouldn’t have happened.”

“There’s not much else to do about it now, so don’t worry about it. Anyway, if you see him sometime, can you let him know that…” Massu stops. Junno looks at him pointedly, but Massu seems to have just stopped altogether, and this pause gives him a pretty big hint as to what he was about to say.

“Yeah. Yes. Absolutely,” Junno reassures him. “Though I should probably tell you, I’ll be deleting this game for good the moment I log out.”

Massu smiles, small but genuine. “It’s okay…I had a pretty good life.”

 

When Junno pops the CD out of the console, he doesn’t really know what he wants to do with it – everything seemed so clear up to that part. He knows he said he would delete it and make sure no one got their hands on it, but even though he only spent two hours in there, getting rid of the game, _deleting Massu_ \-- it made a lump form in the pit of his stomach. He stares at it for a few seconds, wondering what if this was his own game.

He tucks it into an envelope and puts it in his desk drawer for safe-keeping.

Maybe Shige would want it back one day.

 

The most fascinating thing about Massu is the fact that he seemed to be perfectly willing to accept the fact that he was computer generated, and there was no hostility and no thirst for power. He didn’t come across as having a personality capable of mass destruction, so perhaps it truly depended on the AI created. Junno made sure to include this in the details of the report he was to give that week. He wonders if he should tell Ohkura the same thing – he also didn’t seem like he would be very upset at the news, or at least be able to handle it accordingly, but he just didn’t know.

He toys with the idea for a few days, taking time away from the NPC side of things to help out with some of the kinks in the battle system, glad for the break. He throws himself into the battle system, finding it to be a good stress reliever, finally gaining some ground in the main storyline of the game.

As he emerges from the pod after a testing session with Yoko, he comes face to face with a man in a suit, clearly marking him from a department other than creative. As Junno’s rubbing his eyes, clearing his vision up, one of them steps forward, holding out his hand.

“Taguchi-san?”

Junno nods as Yoko takes his spot in the simulation pod. He reaches out and clasps the hand offered to him, shaking it briefly. “That’s me. You are…?”

“Kamenashi Kazuya, from HR,” Kamenashi replies. “I’m here to reassign you.”

Junno blinks. “…reassign?”

“Yes, see,” Kamenashi goes on. “The company is putting the development of the virtual reality game on hold for the time being, so you and your team will start working on the development of a traditional dating sim for the Nintendo DS next week. You’ll have a week to clear your office of any sim pods and get them moved to storage.”

“Oh…” Junno frowns a little. “That’s news.”

“The company is very sincere in its apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused.”

“It won’t be the first time this has happened,” Junno shrugs, still not sure what to feel. “What’s the reason? Money?”

Kamenashi pauses. “Amongst other things, yes.”

“Such as?”

“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to discuss this any further.”

“Of course,” Junno nods. “Thank you for letting me know.”

“Not at all,” Kamenashi replies smoothly. “Details of the game you’ll be working on will be made available to you in a few days. In the meantime, it’s highly suggested you cease all this testing you’re doing as soon as possible.”

 

The staff will be moving the simulation pods to their proper storage compartment later in the day. There’s a steady line of people making last minute trips into the game world for their own reasons, whatever they are, but Junno is in no position to judge. He’s patiently waiting for everyone to leave so he can have his own turn.

Finally, the last person leaves at around noon, and Junno shuts the door to the office behind them. The pair of goggles hangs off his fingers as he walks over to the simulation pod, stopping in front of the door. He sighs.

Saying goodbye to a computer generated image really should not be this hard.

He tugs the goggles on and steps into the pod, closing the door. He powers it on, then scrolls through page after page of different game saves, finally landing on the one that’s clearly marked ‘Taguchi’. He selects it, and the interior pod lights dim as the loading screen is splashed in front of him. It doesn’t take long to load and in no time, Junno’s standing in his permanent room at the inn.

It isn’t quite night but he knows Ohkura well enough to know that he’ll be wandering the market at this time of day, getting in some grocery shopping done while he still has the chance to, so Junno leaves the inn, following the worn path towards the center of the city.

True enough, he spots Ohkura wandering around the produce stands, no doubt comparing prices or quality or whatever else. He sneaks up behind him and taps him on the shoulder, laughing a little too loud when Ohkura jumps and trips a little.

“Why would you do that?” Ohkura mumbles.

“Sorry, sorry, you just looked so cute and deep in thought over…” Junno peers at the crate in front of them. “Brussel sprouts.”

“They’re important,” Ohkura defends himself. “Have you been off doing ranger things this morning?”

“No, nothing like that. I’m not a very good ranger, remember?” Junno grins, though repeating the joke now feels a little bitter on his tongue. “I was just sleeping.”

“Lucky,” Ohkura muses. “Though that’s not like you.”

“I guess I was more tired than I thought I was.” Junno reaches down and plucks the basket from Ohkura’s hand. “I’ll hold on to that for you.”

“Such a gentleman,” Ohkura rolls his eyes, although he seems pleased overall, promptly taking the chance to inspect produce closer. They wander and chat, far longer than Junno thought they would, and forty five minutes have already passed when they’re finally finished and Junno panics a little – there’s not much time before the staff arrives to pick up the pods, and all he’s done is gone grocery shopping.

“Hey, so,” Junno says as they’re on their way back to Ohkura’s home. The streets are quiet now that the sun is setting, and guards walk to and fro to light the torches lining the pathways to shine a little light on the area. He can feel Ohkura’s eyes on him, urging him to go on. “There’s a big chance that I might be leaving for a while.”

“You finally found a decent ranger job?” Ohkura jokes.

Junno laughs despite himself. “Hey, I’m serious. I probably won’t be back for a long time.”

“Where are you going?”

Junno pauses, wondering what to tell him. Days of debating whether to tell Ohkura the ultimate truth or not still weighed heavily on his mind, and he didn’t know how the other would react. It seemed like there wasn’t much to lose considering this would be the last time they saw each other in a long, long time, but he couldn’t help but think that the less Ohkura knew, the better. And maybe that was the way to go, then. What Ohkura didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him in the long run.

“There’s a ranger meeting of sorts up north,” Junno finally says. “We go and catch up and chat and maybe finish any unfinished business someone may have. It’s hard to say.”

“When do you leave?”

“Tonight. Soon. …in an hour, actually.”

Ohkura doesn’t say anything for a little while, letting the silence stretch until they’re both at his house. He pushes the door open. “But you _are_ coming back, right?”

“At some point.”

“I guess I’ll have to be okay with that.” Ohkura takes the basket and places it on the table before turning his full attention to Junno. “Thank you for letting me know,” he says.

“You don’t have to thank me for that, I wasn’t going to leave without saying anything.” Junno drapes his arms over Ohkura’s shoulders, bringing their faces close, nuzzling his nose with his own.

“I guess you do have to go, though,” Ohkura sulks.

Junno nods a little. “Yeah, I really do.” He pauses. “Everything is going to be all right.”

“That sounds like it was for you more than it was for me.”

“…I think maybe it was.”

 

He saves three times, just in case, and climbs out of the pod, right on time. In five minutes, the doors to the lab opens and two men carrying a trolley stroll inside. Junno directs them to wait a few moments as he unplugs the machinery, carefully coiling the cords and tying them together with a rubber band. He watches the men shift the pod onto the trolley and roll it away, the last of the pods officially being transported to the company’s storage facility.

Junno puts on his jacket, buttoning it up to the top, slinging his bag over his shoulder. He turns the light off, closes and locks the door behind him, and heads on home.

Monday is a new day, and a new game.

 

One dating sim, one hack-and-slash, two RPG’s and two new sets of songs for DDR later and Junno doesn’t think about the man in the virtual reality simulation much anymore. He used to think about him a lot at first, but when the days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months, there seemed to be no point. The company didn’t seem like they knew when they wanted to start development on it again, and so all Junno could do was slowly but surely move on. It was mentally healthier, for sure, although very, very bittersweet. The only time he even thinks about the game at all is when he meets up with Shige for dinner every so often, though even this lessens as time goes on and Junno meets Tegoshi, Shige’s almost long-term boyfriend, Massu forgotten or, at the very least, stowed away.

Eventually, the man simply becomes a far off memory.

On his way home one day, he stumbles into a man with a large suitcase with him, looking around his neighborhood frantically. Junno pauses and watches the man mumble to himself, scarf bundled tight around his neck, hair on the long side. He’s tall, almost Junno’s height himself, and seems like he needs help. But Junno doesn’t really have the time to stop to help – a new episode of One Piece is on in ten minutes, so he walks on by, ducking his head low to avoid making eye contact.

He sees the same man the next morning at the train station, getting a drink from the vending machines. This time, however, it seems as if the machine had eaten his money, and he’s jabbing his finger at the machine accusingly, looking quite displeased at his predicament. This time, Junno takes pity on him.

“Here, let me. This machine in particular tends to do that a lot, but all you have to do is jiggle the coin return dial a few times.” He pulled the knob back and forth a few times, and gave the side of it a light kick, and soon the man’s change came tumbling out the change dispenser.

“Thank you,” the man says. Junno straightens and holds his change out, getting as good a look of the man’s face as he can, despite the scarf. There’s something about his eyes that seem eerily similar, but Junno can’t place them. There’s a brief moment in which the other’s eyes seem to recognize him, however, and Junno takes a few steps backwards.

“Wait, Taguchi-kun?”

Junno freezes a little. “How do you know my name…?”

“It’s me, Ohkura! From elementary school!” The scarf is moved a little so he has space to speak, and Junno finally gets a good look at the man’s face.

There is no way.

“You moved away before we finished elementary school, though,” Ohkura continues, trying to jog Junno’s memory. He wracks his brain trying to think of anyone by the name of ‘Ohkura’ that he was friends with back in elementary school. There was Ueda and Maruyama, who he’s still friends with now, and then there was Aiba and Koyama who seem to have become models or idols or something. Ohkura…Ohkura…Ohkura…

There’s a flash of a round, pudgy face, huge ears and dorky, extra-bucky bucked teeth. All the teachers fawned over him in school, something about incurring their maternal instincts, and he napped more than any other person Junno knew in the entire world.

“Ohkura, like, Ohkura Tadayoshi?” Junno chokes out.

Ohkura beams. “Yes! That’s me! Oh man, I just moved here yesterday and I didn’t expect to see anyone I knew. It’s good to see you!”

“You too,” Junno replies, slightly dazed. Just in time, the warning tone for the next coming train sounds, and he’s brought back to himself, somewhat relieved that this is real life and most definitely _not_ a game.

Ohkura frowns, but his hands grasp at a strap hanging from his jacket pocket. He tugs out his cell phone, flipping it open. “That’s my train, so I should probably get going. But here, give me your mail address? We’ll catch up sometime, say this weekend?”

Junno nods dumbly and quickly types out his email address onto Ohkura’s phone, handing it back to him just as the train pulls into the station. He waves to him as he toddles onto the train. “Hey, wait!” Junno calls out after him, finding his voice. Ohkura tilts his head to the side in confusion. “Do you like beer? I know a great bar.”

Ohkura smiles brightly. “Love it.”

The doors close, and all Junno is left with is the vision of Ohkura waving at him through the windows as the train pulls away.


End file.
